EdItoR's NoTe

The Jewish Community Center of Metropolitan
Detroit Jimmy Prentis Morris Building
Invites The Entire Community To...

Winter Family
Fun Day

H A Heartbeat

confess there are times I am sick
of hearing about love. Good
grief, it's everywhere.
The other day I bought my favorite
herbal tea and there, printed on the
side, was a message about love. lt
was uttered by some New-Age
guru — you know the type, who
mumbles something like "nothing is
more important than love" — and
half the idiot world sits up in
utter and complete astonish-
ment.
When I'm not reading
about love on the side of a
tea box, I'm hearing it on
the radio — whether its an
easy-listening station" that I
just happen to stop on (I promise I
DO NOT linger) or the heaviest
meta! you could possibly tolerate.
Love is always on greeting cards,
of course, invariably accompanied
by "special," a word which, along
with all its variants (especially "spe-
cialness") I absolutely loathe. Count-
less books have been written about
love, and could there be a single
soap-opera episode that didn't focus
on why John didn't love Tracy but
did love Ashley, who was herself in
love with Colton, whose mother
never really married the man she
loved, Tim, but instead wed
Michael, who was in fact actually in
love with Lisa who never got along
with her own mother, whom she
never believed really loved her ...
A greeting card reads, "You are
loved! You are special! Cherish the
specialness that is you!"
My response, "Drop dead.'
One reason I hate all this ubiqui-
tous love talk is that it belittles the
whole concept, which is in fact
quite extraordinary — especially
parental love.
It would be understandable, of
course, if parents fell in love with
children several weeks after they
are born. The whole labor thing is

.

long over, Mom has a few good
nights' sleep, baby is no longer
grey and wrinkled, some of those
adorable, overpriced outfits now
actually fit baby.
But love begins the moment of
conception, and this is true whether
its your own biological child or one
someone else is carrying who you
are about to adopt. Here is this
human-being-in-formation, a
tiny collection of legs and a
heart and toes and eyes,
and you love this child
before she is smaller than
the size of a pencil point.
You love this child so much
— and you haven't even
seen him, or felt him move, or held
him in your arms (you can barely
even imagine him) — that you
would give your life for his in a
heartbeat.
I, for one, rather like this facet of
parental love. It is haunting, certain-
ly, and strange, too, to be so whol-
ly possessed from the moment you
first learn you are about to have a
child. But sometimes those things
we con explain least are the ones
that are most real.
Almost everything in the world can
be easily described: the soft flutter of
a butterfly's wing, the sharp, fizzy
bite of a soda pop, the heavy
silence of falling snow. Yet trying to
explain a parent's love is like trying
to capture the wind — you can
grasp and grasp and grasp, but you
will never catch hold.

Friday, December-

25

Swim In The Pool
Play Carnes & Relays

12:20-1:20 p.m. • Free of Charge

Cr\fp
**
**Ron Coders

Family Concert

❑

2:00-2:00 p.m. • 53.00

Elizabeth Applebaum
AppleTree Editor

You can reach Elizabeth Apple-
baum at (248) 354-6060 ext.
308, or by e-mail at philap-

ple@earthlink.net .

For

more information or to purchase tickets,
please call (24-) 967-4-020.

Sponsored By:

The Boaz Siegel Culture Fund

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Detroit Jewish Ne,.A.s